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Cristián Tamblay is a Chilean drummer, composer, and producer. His sound is primarily characterized by the Jazz Fusion culture, although his collaborations as a sideman embrace genres that include R&B, Jazz, Rock, Funk, Latin, Pop, and Classical music. Cristián has been involved with people such as world-renowned rock keyboardist and ex-member of Dream Theater, Derek Sherinian, contemporary jazz guitarist and one of the pioneers of the use of microtones in Jazz, David Fiuczynski, jazz-fusion keyboardist Jesus Molina, one of the most recorded bass players, Chuck Rainey, American singer Lalah Hathaway, as well as classical ensembles like the Carducci String Quartet and the Pyxis String Quartet, a nomination at the AMI awards on the EP "Barong and Rangda", among other highlights. Cristián graduated with a 5-year Dual Degree program of Bachelor of Music in Jazz Composition and Performance at Berklee College of Music in Boston, MA where he studied with drummer Billy Kilson. Since then, he has continued performing and recording his own and other artists' music. 

 

Born in La Serena, Chile, he started playing at the age of 3 years old and professionally at age 13. Because of his father, who was also a professional drummer for a few years, Cristián grew up surrounded by music from local Rock bands, Pop music from the radio, and Jazz with recordings of who later became a major influence on his playing and compositions, Chick Corea. Later on, he moved to Iquique and started playing in the big band of his school and very soon performed locally with multiple other bands, this allowed him the possibility to have more ambitious goals that quickly translated into his first visit to the United States in 2013 and 2014 in order to take lessons with drummers like Dave Weckl, Virgil Donati, Dave DiCenso and Chris Coleman. 

 

In 2021 he released his debut Album "Exordium" with original compositions that have multiple genres mixed with Jazz, the predominant style of the album (check out Cristián's interview with BuzzMusic on his debut album here). A second release took place a few months later, but this time it was a Single that had the peculiarity of featuring Derek Sherinian on keys. Cristián's original song "Revolutions" had a much more aggressive tone to it and it certainly did justice to Derek's style on the keyboards and synthesizers. In 2022 Cristián released two more Singles, the first one was "Sergio", an original ballad with a much more calm atmosphere that develops gradually and intensely. It is a song dedicated to his grandfather who passed away the same year. However, his third Single had a drastic turn in terms of style and instrumentation. It is an acoustic guitar and piano duet performing Scarlatti's Sonata in D minor K9, 412. It showcases for the first time Cristián's proficiency on the piano and his arrangement skills with a much different style of music. 

 

He has also been recognized for recording and performing drums on contemporary classical pieces from composers like Bela Bartók, Dmitri Shostakovich, and Phillip Glass. All composers that have an important impact on his trajectory as a musician.